By: Gigi Engle

It’s like
you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like
this rite of passage, you know?

I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe
that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary
place. – “Garden State”

There will come a time in adulthood when you make that
cherished journey back to the place where you grew up.

A time when you book a plane ticket and embark on that
familiar voyage back to the place where you lost your first tooth, where you had
your first kiss and where you learned your first lessons about life.

You leave the life you’ve been creating for yourself, the
life that seems so small compared to the one your parents made for you.

You take a deep breath and make that trip home.

You get to your hometown and drive down the same streets you
still know like the back of your hand.

You see your family, you reminiscence and you go to sleep in
your old bed. Somewhere along the way, it will hit you.

As you lie bathed in the echoing memories of what feels like
a hundred lifetimes ago, it slithers in.

The thought will creep up on you, as you lie awake,
listening to the sounds of the house that sheltered you long before you were
exposed to the harsh realities of the world, back when this was the only life
you really knew.

It’s a sad feeling, really. One that is ripe with loss. As
you stare at the cracks in your ceiling, as you trace your fingers over the
initials you carved into your bed frame at the age of eight, suddenly, you
realize you don’t feel comfortable like you once did.

You feel like a stranger inside of a place you used to know
so well. It feels like you’ve stepped inside the memories of another life.

It suddenly becomes very apparent your old house, in your
old town, is no longer home.

Where you imagined you would feel so safe and at peace, you
instead feel lost.

It’s overwhelming, and it’s strange. It hurts to feel this
way, to find yourself feeling so disconnected in a place that is supposed to be
the epitome of your comfort zone.

It’s daunting to have to face the harsh reality that this
place you used to call home is no longer that place for you. Your heart is no
longer there. You no longer belong.

Everything has a past, but you don’t see a future.

You drive past your old high school, your favorite sandwich
shop and that worn-down playground.

Everything is dripping with nostalgia. Everything here has a
story. Yet, you don’t see a future.

You don’t see yourself ever wanting to come to these places
again.

You don’t see yourself raising a family here, putting down
roots. It feels like a closed chapter book, and there are no new memories to be
made.

It feels
more like a vacation spot than it does home.

You used to feel so content here. Everything suddenly feels
like a novelty.

You don’t come here after being away from home; you plan to
come here after being at your home.

Home stops feeling like a place of rest when you have to use
a few of your allotted 14 vacation days in order to go there.

You realize
the only thing you had in common with your old friends is you grew up here.

Once you left high school, you suddenly realized the only
thing you had in common with your “high school friends” was the fact that you
went to the same school.

Where you used to miss your friends so much, you now don’t
want to see anyone who grew up with you when you need to leave the house.

Once you get out into the real world, you find people who
have similar dreams and aspirations. They left their hometowns for the bigger
picture, just like you.

You see how
far you’ve come.

You realize you’ve evolved, but your hometown hasn’t. You
see people doing the same things they’ve always done, and you don’t want to do
those things. You see how much you’ve grown.

Sometimes it takes going back to your old hood to see just
the true trajectory of your progress in life.

You see the girls from high school who are married with
kids, still living on the same street; you see the dads playing golf and
pumping their gas in middle-class suburbia, and you realize this may have been
the life you grew up with, but it isn’t the life you want for yourself.

It may make them happy, but it could never be enough for
you.

Activities
you used to love have now lost their luster.

You used to love going to the mall and going swimming in the
lake. You adored mini golf and running around in the local woods, drinking 40s.

All of those activities and places you used to put so much
importance and significance on now seem shallow and pointless.

A trip to the movies used to feel like the most incredible
thing in the world.

When you’re home, you become strangely aware of how much of
an adult you have become.

You feel
like an outsider because you are an outsider.

You feel like a stranger in a strange land in a place you
used to call “home.”

You realize the idea of “home” is very subjective. Just
because you grew up somewhere doesn’t mean you’ll always belong there.

You know this place will always hold a small piece of your
heart and will forever contain some of your fondest memories — and yet, this
place is no longer home.

It’s a curious thing that happens when you’ve grown up. It
comes on unexpectedly, but it always comes.

The place you’re meant to call home is out there, waiting
for you to find it.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

A positive and informative interview with Paul about Qatar/Emirates/Flydubai

Source:

http://howtobecabincrew.com/from-church-painter-to-cabin-crew/

Paul
Tufescu

From church painter to cabin crew

Paul
Tufescu, apparently a shy young man, amazed me during a flight with his wide
smile and availability to help everybody on board, colleagues included. While
working as a church painter in Moldavia, for the love of flying, Paul gave up
his job, to join a so-called women’s world, as a cabin crew.

Paul,
please tell us about the period when you were a cabin crew at Qatar
Airways and also about how the recruitment interview was conducted?

The
period in which the first 8 Romanians came to Qatar Airways, in 2003, was a
memorable one, considering that I had the chance to be a part of one of the
most beautiful stages of this company’s evolution. Why do I say memorable?
Because I had the most beautiful flight schedule anyone would have dreamt of
during his cabin crew career, with 11 days of layover in Shanghai, 7 days
in Singapore, 9 in Bangkok, 5 in Casablanca, 4 in Paris and so on.

During
the 7 years spent there, I used to work about 22, 23 days a month with 7 or 8
days off and 30 days of annual leave, which could be used all at once or
whenever needed. There have been ups and downs, but what matters most is the
personality of the one that interprets the experience. I’ll say that I have
always been guided by my flying passion and the desire to do everything as it
should be done.

I
had my recruitment interview in Dubai. There were about 250 candidates and
recruiting officer was the current Manager of the Cabin Crew Department, Saliy
Karunanayke, at that time, Deputy Manager of the Cabin Crew Department. The
first phase of the interview was the candidates’ introduction. Each had to come
forward and present themselves (name, age, occupation, hobbies and why they
would like to be a cabin crew). After eliminations, the written English test
followed, a very easy one, considering that it consisted of filling in verbs or
given words in a text, and finally writing an essay. Then there was a 15
minutes break… “in case anyone wants to smoke”, a recruiter was observing those
who were smoking … and after the break another round of eliminations followed,
those who smoked being on the list!

After
that we have been divided into groups and have been given a hypothetical situation,
a shipwreck on an island for my group: what would we do first, once arrived on
that island. After the elimination of some other participants, the face-to-face
interview with Mr. Saliy followed, who, after convincing himself that my
English was good, started looking out of the window, asking me what each
building was, who occupied it, and concluded with asking me when would I be
able to join their team. Since I had to give the company I was working fort a
minimum of 30 days resignation warning, Qatar Airways informed me that I will
be given an answer within 2 weeks. And it was a favorable one.

What
were you thinking of when landing?

When
landing … I may say there are 2 answers: when landing in other countries, most
of the time I was thinking about what I should do during my stay in that
country: where to go, what to visit, if I had any friends there, and so on.
When landing in Doha, most of the time my first thought was to take a good nap,
message my parents to let them know everything was fine, then check my roster
for the things to be done during the following days, meet some friends, arrange
some permit if I was planning to travel on my own and so on.

Have
you ever faced any alarming situations in Doha or during your flights?

Alarming
situations, allow me to tell you, I had plenty !!!
On a flight Doha-Milan-Rome, we had a snake on board of the plane, which gave
me a little headache because, as I was speaking Italian, being forced to make
the emergency announcements, I had one of the leading roles, next to the snake
:). “Snakes on a Plane” is still a catchy story inside the company.
During two other flights, this time to the DAC (Dakha, Bangladesh) and to LHR
(London) I had to handcuff passengers … I would need an entire day to tell you
these stories and I would drain my laptop’s battery to tell them in detail. To
cut it short, for the London flight, my action was justified by the fact that a
Pakistani passenger tried to touch one of my colleague’s private parts. On
another flight, this time to MUC (Munich) we had to give first aid to an elder
woman who was in an acute alcohol poisoning state.

After
all these stories you have told me, it seems futile to ask you if you consider
yourself to be a brave person …
No, it’s not futile. As a cabin crew, of course you have to be brave. I think
anyone who dares to fly should know that it is a nice, special job, but that it
also has risks. Acknowledged risks have advantages and disadvantages; travel
isn’t everything, to know for sure everything you need to do, at any given
moment, and put these things into practice, makes the difference between
someone who is touring the world on a plane and someone who came to do their
job. I met a lot of cabin crew members who chose this job to travel the world,
without concern for their work but I also met people who understand that this
is still a job to be done well, not only to be used as a travel agency.

After
the experience with Qatar Airways you preferred working for the Emirates
Airline, on a ground staff position, and then again as a cabin crew for
Flydubai. What did the ground staff job imply?

Indeed,
at the Emirates I have worked for 2 years at the Ground Staff Department. And
it was something special. I have to confess that, at the Emirates, there was
the best management team I have ever had! It had nothing to do with the Qatar
Airways period, and all the rules they had there. Everything is exquisite
compared to Qatar Airways. While I worked for them, I held 2 positions. Six
months a year working at the contact centre (Call Centre) and another 6 months
as a tour guide, both positions at the Emirates because it is a big company and
has many departments, a Tourism Department included. My experience as a tour
guide was nice, I had about 50 tourists daily, taking them to visit all of the
7 emirates here and after that I had to perform another type of customer
service, this time on the telephone, for the other remaining 6 months.
For my work I was given an Excellence in Customer Service Award.

Did
you miss the flying days at Emirates Airlines as ground staff?

Of
course I missed flying and so I found a second home with the people from Flydubai,
a fast-growing company, a company that finally gives me the opportunity to have
my dream job, the cabin crew one, back, with turnaround flights (back and
forth at the base on the same day) and a very simple role, but giving me the
chance to be at home every day (Dubai), the kind of company that is suitable
for families, although I’m still not married.

The
flight virus, luckily, brought me back on board! Once you fly for so many years
it’s not easy to quit flying, obviously I started applying for other companies
for the flight attendant position and was back on board as soon as opportunity
arose … Flight is an incurable “disease”!

Friday, April 3, 2015

If you guys have the chance to see this movie DO SO :-) truly a motivational, interesting movie, that will make you reflect over your own life. Will make you reflect over a lot of things in life. Regardless what kind of movies you are into, this movie will 100% make you smile. You will for sure shed some tears watching this movie, you will laugh a lot and be a bit sad too watching this movie. This movie will truly touch your soul. ❤